352 W. C. Woodward open old wounds and in doing so to create new ones, to discuss politics in the columns of the Spectator — notwithstanding we are now, as we have always been, and ever shall be, a democrat of the Jeffersonian school." The final self-assertive, half defiant declaration of the old democratic war horse is as significant as it is amusing. As far as the writer has found, here was the first public declara- tion on national politics and that in an article arguing that all such should be avoided. It was an earnest of how successful the censorship of the press would be in stifling political dis- cussion in a typical American community. That the personal avowal of political allegiance did not appeal to the owners of the paper as a logical conclusion to a declaration of political neutrality, is evident. Within two months appears T'Vault's defiant valedictory, in which he says: "The political senti- ments avowed were at war with some of the present aristocracy of the land notwithstanding the avowal that the columns of the Spectator should be kept within the construction of the Constitution of the printing association." 1 Having in mind apparently the American population, he continues : "That there is [sic] two distinct parties in Oregon no one will for a moment doubt, differing, however, not upon those great funda- mental principles * * * as is the case with our fellow- citizens in the United States, but upon subjects less worthy of name. We have amongst us a class of mungralls, neither American nor anti-American — a kind of foreign hypocritical go-betweens, as we would say in the states — fence men." T'Vault explains that while the excuse given for his dismissal was that his syntax and orthography were bad (alas, too true) the real reason was that he didn't boost the aforementioned aristocracy, referring doubtless to Governor Abernethy and the Missionary influence. He warns this "junto of aristocracy in and about Oregon City" who think they have the right to manage matters as best suit their views that they will have to i Spectator, April 2, 1846.
